In Georgia and 46 other states across the country, the Republican Party is trying to keep Black and brown people and other members of the Democratic Party’s base from voting. The goal is to keep the Republican Party in power indefinitely through a pseudo-democratic system political scientists call “competitive authoritarianism.”

In essence, today’s Republicans want to turn back history’s clock to the Jim Crow era.

The smokescreen for this assault on American democracy is that such anti-democracy efforts are intended to “protect” the “security” of votes against the threat of “voter fraud,” “manipulation” and “corruption” by unseen (and of course nonexistent) forces.

But the smokescreen is transparent.

On Tuesday, Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp admitted the truth about the Republican plot against democracy, telling WABE radio, “A lot of this bill is dealing with the mechanics of the election. It has nothing to do with potential fraud or not.”

Kemp’s statement echoes other public admissions by prominent Republicans and members of the white right: They that know […]